BILL CADY
Post Office Box 567
San Luis Rey, California 92068-0567
Tel: (760) 803-6690
Fax: (760) 637-2862
bill@billcady.com
WORD COUNT: 78,231
CC Ryder, Mercy Me!
By Bill Cady
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 Bill Cady
Smashwords Edition, License
Notes
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The CC Ryder series is written in this order. The stories are sequential, meaning you may enjoy them better reading them in the order they were created.
CC Ryder, Jurist
CC Ryder, Still Looking
CC Ryder, Guilty of Nothing
CC Ryder, It's Now Or Never
CC Ryder, You Scratch My Back
CC Ryder Never Gives Up
CC Ryder, Picking Up The Pieces
CC Ryder, Like Mama, Like Daughters
CC Ryder, It's My Party, I'll Cry If I Want To
CC Ryder, The Stalking Siren
CC Ryder, Spanning The Gap
CC Ryder, Beyond The Gap
CC Ryder, Seeing Justice Done
CC Ryder, Mercy Me! … still being written
CC Ryder, What Are You Made Of? … still being written
CHAPTER ONE
San Diego, California
Monday, December 22nd, 2008 … 7:04 p.m.
Wrecked.
It's not a term used often to describe another human being. As a matter of fact, because I'm such a voracious reader, I'll bet I've read eleventeen-hundred and eighty-eight books in my life and I don't think I've ever seen anyone described that way. I really don't.
However, that's the most accurate way to tell someone what the man standing before me looked like. Wrecked. Ruined. Stranded. Left all alone in a location so far from anything worth knowing it's impossible to return from it. So remote you can't get here from there. You'd have to go elsewhere to start a return journey. The place he'd been dispatched to was simply too distant to even connect to a path back to the world.
What made it even odder, more unacceptable, was the victim of the moment. You see, of all those books I've read, this man wrote the very best ones.
Sheesh! Where are my manners? My common sense? To be fair, I'll need to back up to explain some of the important facts so you'll understand what I'm saying.
My name, as you know, is CC Ryder. I'm a judge with the San Diego Superior Court in North San Diego County, working from the Vista courthouse. I'm a family woman who lives in a beautiful house on the beach located a little bit outside of Encinitas, halfway between San Diego and Oceanside, California. Who I am isn't really an important part of all this, but it does serve as a connection linking the fine man I'm talking about and the horrible situation he's now involved in. Because of me. That part hurts me just to think about it.
It's fair to say the problems, and they are multiple, began with some very sleazy rapes. I don't mean to imply there's ever been a "good rape". Criminy! I was a rape victim myself, six years ago when the man I loved and I were on the beach at a lake in northern Michigan. A girl walking with us, a sweetheart teen named Chelsea Dunnigan, was raped and murdered. My guy, Baker Mann, was beaten within an inch of his life and emasculated. I was so severely raped and brutalized inside I'll never bear children naturally. However, the man I've given my life to now, Donnie Oldrunner, and I have four beautiful babies and we're very happy together. Still, as the focus isn't on me at this point, we'll get to that part later.
The rapes to which I refer were committed against my court reporter, Tabatha Marshall, and a wonderful woman who's also recently become my friend named Adele Nostrum. They had both joined one of those danged singles services and were set up maliciously. The people who ran a lowlife scam were scouring these sites to get first dates. The dates were, of course, all with unsuspecting women, although there was a woman among the sleazebags, too, who dallied with men on those sites. Her interests, however, were confined to prurient sex with almost any man who caught her fancy. The guys were an altogether different story, even more revolting.
They'd duped a young girl who worked at various Starbucks stores into being a part of their scheme. In brief, they used "date rape drugs" in a woman's drink to incapacitate her, then at least two men at a time would have sex with her while she was incoherent and videotape it. The rapists would then vanish without a trace, leaving the women unknowing, feeling the guy was yet another slug who promised to call her, but didn't. Some time afterward that woman involved, pretending to be an attorney for a wealthy pervert, would contact the woman who'd unknowingly been violated. The ruse was her "client" had bought supposed porn tapes and learned the woman wasn't just some porn star. With an alleged "investment" of $10,000 then at stake this fictional pervert wanted to recover, the phony woman lawyer would offer to sell the photos back "at cost" and keep everything private. While we don't know exactly how many were victims of this sting, one was connected to me as my court reporter. My secretary-office manager, Tez Fischer, came upon the other, that girl named Adele Nostrum.
Because of some unusual circumstances and Tez tipping me to all this, when I found out the police were undermanned and wouldn't be able to do anything about it, I saw red. I set up my own "counter-sting" to get these lizards. My other co-best buddy, in addition to Tez, is a cop I met a year or so back named Angela Dutton. She's a Detective First Grade with the San Diego Police Department who insisted on taking part on a personal basis. If the Department couldn't do anything officially, she was still game to help me. Her associate, Detective Carlina Torres, took part for the same reason. Dedicated, pissed off and seeking justice, we all got started.
Among the things we hadn't counted on were the people involved on the other side, far more than we anticipated. Nor their true motivation, and the power they wielded. Everything was soon turned upside down and the whole matter became scary as can be.
As it developed, the two guys doing the actual physical rapes were twin brothers. Both came to the USA from the Ukraine via Brighton Beach, a section of Brooklyn, New York. It's now largely overrun with criminals from the former Soviet Union and the surrounding territory. They were paid assassins who relocated and set up shop doing the same thing in our country. As I understand it, a few years back they killed someone too high on the food chain to allow them to remain at large where they'd been living and went underground. They surfaced here in San Diego County and were lying low until the heat cooled off. Made wealthy by what they'd done before, they had no need to commit any crimes. Unfortunately, they were bored. Bored and horny. Possessed of a criminal mentality, it made sense to them to solve the problem via lucrative sex crimes. They'd make money and get what they craved at the same stroke of a brush. While it may have been a feasible and viable theory from their demented perspectives, none of it sat well with anyone else. Their names were supposedly Brett and Brock Mandelbrot, but they were phony, of course.
The one masquerading as Brett, if you can wrap your mind around something so utterly abhorrent, stooped to the low point of murdering his own twin brother to escape detection and a prison sentence. A total animal in every respect. However, he wasn't done murdering people by that point. It was more that he was just getting started. Perhaps that will tell you how creepy it all became in such a hurry.
Jeez, this is getting involved, but you need to know it to make sense of what's happening in our world at the present. The twin who murdered his brother is actually named Boris Manlinin and he's even creepier than you might be thinking. However, even if the guy is an absolute turd in every way, he's subject to some of the same failings we are. As I understand it, he fell in love. In itself, that's not unusual. I absolutely love my guy Donnie to pieces, but I could never do any of the evil and nasty things this dirtbag has done. He fell in love with a rather wealthy and well connected tramp named Melissa Detweiler. She's an otherwise average looking girl in her mid 20s willing to have sex with anyone. Dang it, I mean anyone, too. Man, woman, good, bad, one at a time or in groups. No minimum requirements on her partner.
I know. It makes me feel a bit urpy, too, but people like that do exist. Oh, but she has one other bed partner, this one of longstanding. Are you ready for this? It's her brother.
Oh, puke! I'll admit I'm an only child, not spoiled, spanked on rare occasions as a kid, and I've never been called a prude. Still, with her own brother? Good Lord, how disgusting!
In any event, she'd have sex with this Manlinin guy, but she wouldn't commit to him in any way. That leaves him in competition with her brother. How sick is that, I ask you?
This Manlinin is a pain in more than one butt and for a number of reasons. We haven't figured out all of 'em yet, but we're getting there. By "we", I mean my cop friend Angela Dutton and me. And a few other cops she has involved. And "Federal weight", as she calls it. We have reason to believe all these things are connected and the link in every case is this Manlinin jerk, who gets around, to say the very least.
Manlinin has a friend, if I use the term very loosely, who is a career criminal. Angela says it's all "small stuff", beyond the fact she's rather certain he's killed a few people. I'm sure it sounds tacky but, according to Angela, any killings he may have done were all NHI cases. In cop talk it means No Humans Involved. Merely other scumwads like himself. Career criminals and a lot of what would be seen as "lowlifes". While I don't condone any killing other than to save the life of an innocent person, which I've done a few times myself, I'll confess I don't get up from my chair and pace with anxiety when a scumbag bites the dust. Not even sorry about it. For so many of them it just comes with the territory.
In any event, this career criminal is named Casey Bingham. At the moment … well, until very recently, I guess … he was in a state prison for what would've been many years for armed robbery. Unquestionably, it wasn't his first offense, but he'd been caught, tried and sentenced. He made contact with a lady we know, a sweet black girl named Shandell who now works for a very prominent local criminal attorney. She wrote him in prison needing a big favor. He's known her for quite some time and she felt she could ask. He was actually her last hope.
Her teen cousin, Varshawn Bristol, allowed himself to be caught up in the gang life. He was a participant at a crime that ended in some innocent deaths. Without an intervention, he'd've died in prison when he was in his 70s, maybe earlier because it's such a grungy lifestyle. Being a boy, he'd've also been the target of sexual predators in that prison. When she asked Casey's help, he explained the prison rules are very different than life is on the outside. Shandell is black, as is her cousin. Casey Bingham is a white male. In the prison system the races aren't even allowed to talk beyond a greeting and inconsequential things like "how are you?". If they do, it means they'll be beaten, maybe killed. Quite often they're also sexually molested by gangs of other inmates. It proves our prisons are not Mr. Rogers' neighborhood, I guess.
However, Casey Bingham knew a black convict named Major Gaynor. We also knew of him. He'd been a rising star in the San Diego County Republican party and was a candidate in the 2004 county supervisor's race. A man named Jerrod Detweiler, the sleazy brother of that outright slut named Melissa, was running as a Democrat.
Do you feel the strings drawing this together a little bit?
This harlot Melissa arranged to willfully have sex with Mr. Gaynor and three other black men, all at one time. It was her idea, and she even tried to recruit a relatively naïve girl named Della Purcell, going by the name Jaden Dormer at the time I met her, to assist. In other words, it was her idea to have sex with all these men.
The next day she cried rape and Mr. Gaynor, along with his friends, was sent to prison for what would've actually meant his entire life. He was an innocent man, but she got him sent off to prison. It then meant her brother, well behind in the polls until that point, won the election.
How convenient.
With the help of Shandell, Angela got a few different people together, made excellent use of what she calls "Federal weight" because it was tied in with the Boris Manlinin matter, and got Mr. Gaynor released from prison into her custody. Casey Bingham and Varshawn came along in the swap due to the power of that "Federal weight".
That was, by no means, the end of it. Not even close.
This Manlinin is truly an ogre. In addition to killing his brother, he used a knife to slay a girl peripherally involved in the case named Donna and even tried to kill the woman involved in the blackmail scheme they had going. In a related matter we haven't yet resolved, that very same woman also tried to seduce my new writer friend, Bill Cady, rather enthusiastically. Worse, she even became a party to a thankfully unsuccessful attempt to blow up our home and kill a lot of good people, although Angela isn't yet certain whom was the specific target that time.
Be that as it may, she did so in conjunction with what we believe is this Manlinin slob and another man, but they made the entire incident bizarre beyond any comprehension.
Without belaboring the point and including far too many details, my new dear friend and favorite author ever, Bill Cady, became a collateral damage victim by the last step in a macabre and sinister event. While I hold Bill is a very handsome man and uniquely charming, with a very folksy manner, he says otherwise. Still, it seems he's never had any problem getting women into his life, but he's never found one he chose to keep. Now, around age sixty, he's divorced and, as he puts it, "alone except for my pet bear". He has a small stuffed bear he calls Kadiak de Kodiak as a best buddy, and no woman in his life. Swears he'd been done with the idea for a few years, but he does still date from time to time. In that oddest of fashions known as Fate, Bill encountered Adele Nostrum at our place and all the seismographs went berserk. I wouldn't even question it if told the electrical pull those two created threw the radar out of whack on any planes using Lindbergh Field in San Diego at the time. They were sucked together as if a fusion magnet was attached to each and the ground shook all the way up to Malibu, for Pete's sake! Criminy! That man and woman went absolutely nuts over each other. Talk about two people who are the victims of static cling? I mean!
It never got to the sickening part where they were pawing each other, or tongue wrestling in front of everyone. They didn't make people think they'd walked in on a frantic spit swap meet of some kind, but no one's imagination had to make any Olympic leaps to picture it when they were away from the crowd.
Which was very seldom and even more fleeting.
Adele was staying with us. I think I mentioned it, along with Tabatha, because this very evil Manlinin was trying to kill them both. Bill was here as often as he dared, and there aren't too many things that guy doesn't dare. Meaning he left late and showed up early. They were both gaga for each other. Not in a sickening way, as I said, but in a fashion I found very touching. It was enough to bring a tear to my eye a couple times. Two people so anxious to find a partner, who had both given up, then stumbled upon each other. I even asked Bill if what he'd found with Adele might inspire a novel in that regard.
He told me it takes no talent to write a love story and even less imagination, although he added he's convinced all love stories are 100% fiction. Perhaps with Adele, I wondered, that may change, but I didn't say anything about it to him. In many ways, I'm very glad I didn't.
Three people appeared offshore late this afternoon as Bill and I sat talking up on the third deck of our house. The house is three stories overlooking the Pacific in Encinitas with a deck on each level. A speedboat of some kind came tearing at us, but stopped 200-300 yards away from the sand. The people in it, whom we surmise were Manlinin, the slutty pretend-attorney woman from the scam, and a guy we don't know, set about their tasks. They sent up a remote controlled airplane, circled the boat at first, then sent it charging toward us on the deck.
The bleeping thing had a freaking bomb attached! I got lucky on my fourth shot and it exploded. Then, as if they'd swiped a scene out of an unbelievable Bruce Willis movie or something, these heathens also dispatched a half dozen men in black ninja suits. Those movie monster figures were swarming over our house, for Pete's sake! It was absolutely kaka!
They broke in via the ground floor patio deck. My guy, Donnie Oldrunner, is a Luiseño Native American, himself a killing machine of the first degree with only his hands and feet, but he was away at the time. He had four fellow Luiseños present, all ex-marines and extremely well trained in hand-to-hand combat, guarding us. They herded our babies and the others into what we call the "safe room" on the ground floor. One was to go into the locked and fortified safe room with them while the other three stood guard outside.
When Bill and I made it down there, me with my .380 Beretta and Bill with a 9mm I took from a dresser in my bedroom, one of the ninjas was already dead. Two of Donnie's guys were also killed, with one still alive and being attacked by three ninjas.
Honestly, I just feel silly saying this, but they were dressed head to toe in black. Just like all the weird ninjas in movies. One of the three attacked me, the fool. As if I was going to let his eerie, guttural shriek freak me out or something? When two shots into his chest only slowed the nimrod down, telling me he had body armor, I put three into his freaking face.
That got his blasted attention. Count on it.
In the interim, never a man to sit idly by and chew the fat when there's work to be done, Bill grabbed a fireplace poker and made ski-mask-wrapped hamburger of another ninja's skull. The sleaze was dead before he knew about it.
The last weirdo got away out the sliding door, but he threw what we first thought was a freaking grenade at us on his way out! Criminy! Did the three of us ever hit the deck in a hurry!
However, it wasn't a grenade. It was a note.
Odder yet, it was for Bill.
Good grief! The man's a guest in our home and has been there primarily, other than as a visitor when he showed up before meeting Adele, because she was there. No other reason.
The note said these people would get in touch with Bill soon. It insisted he has some item they want, although there's no telling what it might be. It also menaced they have something Bill wants and, if he fails to cooperate, it will be destroyed. So, on a first-things-first basis, we left the man at the door to guard it while Bill and I searched the house. Finding no intruders, we came back to the ground floor, both of us completely at a loss as to what those evil jerks might mean.
It's not proven yet beyond any doubt we have the answer to that question, but we both think we do. If so, it's a rather glaring fact.
Adele Nostrum is missing.
Bill seems to have put it together at the same speed I made my assumption.
That's why I see what I now see.
Bill Cady is standing in front of me looking into the room where we expected he'd find Adele when we opened the door.
Bill is wrecked.
CHAPTER TWO
San Diego, California
Monday, December 22nd, 2008 … 7:11 p.m.
For a long time, the largest part of a minute, I stood in place. Stared at Bill. Sensed if I moved too quickly he might shatter. Come apart in irreparable pieces and fall to the floor as a pile of shards that were once a strong and caring man. It made me think of easing into the water when a toe test says it's pretty danged cold. Chilly enough to possibly throw someone into shock if that person dived headfirst.
First taking a step, I called, "Bill?"
Nothing. He didn't see me. I could tell by looking at him. I took another step. "Bill?"
Still nothing. His face said he couldn't see what he knew wasn't there, so he took one more hard look, still not seeing what he knew wasn't in the room. Then he did it again.
Now his expression said he knew his eyes were lying to him and he'd decided to give 'em one more shot at it. An unspoken message told me he wasn't yet prepared to deal with hearing, or maybe it's better said as not hearing, that much truth. I made a decision and stepped in front of him. "No, Bill. No." I didn't want to finish it aloud. That'd be diving into the gelid water.
Still not looking my way, he shook his head slightly. "No. Wrong." He gulped. "You're wrong." Shook his head again. Gulped again.
"Come sit on a chair," I told him in a firmer voice.
"Can't." Another headshake, his eyes still boring into the room. "Needs me. She does." Gulping again. "Needs me. Adele." He took a long breath, making it seem as if he'd forgotten and was just now getting around to breathing again. "Gotta be sure she's safe."
"Come with me," I said more firmly, clenching his left elbow. "You need—"
"No!" he snapped. "Leave me alone! Adele needs—"
"Damn it, do what I tell you!" I barked back.
That hit home. He shook his head once. Twice. Looked at me in surprise. "CC?"
"Come," I repeated, tugging now as I guided him toward a chair on the wall to my left. "I want you to have a seat."
Somewhat obediently, he allowed me to pull him slightly. Didn't exactly follow. It was more as if he was moving on his own while accepting I was diverting him. He gave the distinct impression he was trying to find a way around me so he could get into the safe room.
"Bill, she isn't in there." Someone had to say it. He clearly couldn't see it himself.
"Huh?" He shook his head again.
"Bill, Adele's not there." Now I was the one taking the deep breath. I didn't see any point in covering the same ground all over again, but he created the impression we were heading into a chorus of what we'd just mumbled our way through. "We can't find her until you snap out of it."
"Until I … me? Until I … where is she?" He leaned to his right, trying to look around me.
Outside the door was Tommy Tallman, the Luiseño who'd stayed with the two others now dead at our feet on the floor. Filling the doorway, leaving no doubt any adversary would only get inside the room now over his corpse, was the one other surviving Luiseño, Delbert Coldwater. Behind them, a glistening knife in her hand, prepared to make anyone who got past Tommy and Delbert wish they hadn't, was our oldest baby, Bren. On Bren's left, but a half step back, stood Adrianne, our child genius, with a look on her face announcing she wasn't always 100% gentle, especially where it concerned her family. An image flashed in my mind from last May when Daniel Barth tried to eliminate our entire family, using dynamite to do it when all his other insane attempts to kill us didn't work. I saw his last second escape attempt, with Adrianne's fingers clasping the remote detonator. That look of zero remorse on her face as she pressed her thumb and turned his body into a red mist to dissipate in the midnight breezes. An angel in every inch of her, a wimp or sissy in none of her.
Tabatha Marshall, my court reporter, her right arm draped around the slender shoulders of Candy, our gourmet chef baby. Paul Girard, Bren's new husband, in a half crouch on her right, his thin and wiry frame poised to attack. Willing to do whatever it might require, no restrictions at all, to protect his bride and her family.
That, and a glaring empty space. A position in the room that gave the impression it held, until minutes ago, the energy that was within Adele Nostrum. A space that seemed to apologize for not containing her at the moment. An open area with a reserved sign marking where she'd be standing as soon as she returned, yet with an uncertainty she'd be able to do so.
"We don't know, Bill. Those men … those weirdos in the ninja suits … must've taken her when they ran. I think that's what the note means," I added, touching the piece of paper gripped in between his left index finger and thumb.
Bill flinched and moved it away protectively, now watching my hand a second before his eyes rose to meet mine again. "Took her?"
I nodded. "I think so. Bill, we have to call the police."
"Yes," he said listlessly, now raising his right hand. He examined the 9mm it held, the gun I got him from my bedroom on the third floor before he and I came charging down the stairs to what we'd hoped was the rescue. "Must find Adele," he declared as he turned and strode off toward the patio door that would let him out facing the beach. Two steps later, he stopped. Made a u-turn, came back and placed the weapon on the chair, thumbing the safety once to be sure it was on. Wheeling again, he only made it one stride back toward the patio before he spun on the ball of his left foot and came back. He lifted the firearm, stuck it into the rear waistband of his jogging suit and muttered, "Probably need it." Reversing course, he was doorway bound again.
Rather than argue, I stepped after him quickly, yanked the gun out and said, "No, Bill. It's not a good idea."
He turned once more. Eyed the weapon in my hand. Looked up to me, then back to my hand. Sighed. Gave the impression he was going to trust me partway on this. "Why?"
"We need to tell the police … and quickly … what happened so they can get started on a way to get her back here safe. Then we have to get your thoughts in order so you can help her." I moved a step closer to the man, lowering my voice. "Bill, Adele is now going to need you to be in good shape. On top of your game so we can get her back. Bill, I need to have you tell me now. Are you going to do this the hard way, or the smart way?" I gulped, deciding to go for broke at this point. "If we don't have full use of your mind, we may not get Adele back at all. So, which is it going to be?"
For a moment he just gaped at me. Then something crossed in his eyes. A force of some kind made itself felt as it resumed control inside his head. One more sigh. "Smart way."
"Good. Then, we'll all be okay. Give me a sec so I can call the police," I told him in a very matter-of-fact tone. "Then we can talk about all this."
One hand up, palm facing them, I kept everyone still inside the safe room while I made my 911 call. Then I called Angela and told her what happened. She'd already gotten something on it from someone because she told me, "On my way, lights and siren!" She was heading to us from somewhere in San Diego when I reached her cell.
Rather than leave him out here alone, hoping if I occupied some of his attention with a duty, it'd help, I told Bill, "Come with me. They need us in there." Then I took his left hand and made my way into the safe room. When Bill and I got in there, everyone gave proof they hadn't forgotten how to talk. The clamor was instantaneous and sustained. Everyone got a hug and a kiss from me while Bill pretty much stood guard, unarmed, and waited. Tommy and Delbert stayed outside the door to make sure no one unauthorized showed up.
When I called 911, I stressed we were all in the downstairs area and insisted any officers should come to the back patio. A minute or so later a sheriff's deputy called out in a loud voice, "Sheriff's Department!"
Making sure my hands were up and away from my body, I went to greet them. At first it had only been one deputy, but another, then another, and yet another all showed up in what felt like another minute or less. Shortly thereafter some people wearing suits arrived, with a rather disturbed Detective Angela Dutton, San Diego Police Department, on their heels, her badge now hanging from the left outer breast pocket of her suit coat.
She spoke right away with the uniformed sergeant on the scene and the detective now in charge, explaining it was a joint investigation and was tied to a case she was currently working. Then she took me aside and said, "I have a surprise for you."
"Oh, Lord. What now?"
"Remember I told you about all the 'Federal weight' on this case?"
"Of course," I assured her. "How could I forget after all that's happened?"
"I don't know," she said, her eyes tightening at the edges. "But that 'weight' is coming and will be here in only a few minutes. As if I need that bullshit right now."
CHAPTER THREE
San Diego, California
Monday, December 22nd, 2008 … 7:53 p.m.
We were involved for a while giving statements, with Bill and me separated until we'd made our recounting, twice apiece. It was the same as all police investigations. They want to get a story … any story will do, but they insist on getting something on tape … then they want to go back over it. And over it. And over it again. And again. The true method to that madness is to see how close repeat versions are to the original, with special attention paid to any lapses, omissions or additions. They don't appreciate "photocopies", by any means, meaning a verbatim repeat of the same thing, but they want to hear the same story, in general. Repeatedly.
In this case we were given a little rhythm, meaning they cut us some slack, because of my pal Angela. She stepped up to my side with her badge on display and cop attitude unmistakable, telling the detective, "Can we grille these two a bit later? Looks to me like we've got a 'walking wounded' on our hands," she emphasized, gesturing toward the stricken looking Bill Cady, "and I think Judge Ryder is the crutch he needs at the moment."
The remark got her a nod in return from the detective, who instructed me, "Yeah. I do see what you mean. Go prop the man up before he falls on his rear end."
I went over to Bill, took his left hand in my right and smiled at him. "I called Donnie and he'll be here within the hour, but you and I need a ciggie break."
He glanced my way, still seeming as if he'd had a half dozen high-powered bullets graze his head on both sides, concussing him, patted the pocket of his sport shirt, and shrugged. "I had one a couple minutes ago." Distractedly, he pulled one out and lit it. "The cops might get mad if I smoke inside the house now." He took a drag and held it in a moment, then released it with a soft snort. "Got to be careful." Proving he was still only partly connected to reality, he took one more hit on his Winston 100 and shrugged.
Tugging on his hand, I gave him a smile. "We have permission. I told 'em we were going upstairs to the second floor deck. C'mon, we need to talk."
Bill followed me, muttering, "Man, I hate it when a girl says that."
The inanity of it made me chuckle, but we went up the stairs, me still holding his hand. I grabbed a jacket from the closet near our front door and pulled one of Donnie's larger jackets off a hanger. I handed it to him, saying, "Put this on. It's getting chilly outside."
More meek and mild than I could've imagined, he complied, then allowed me to lead him down the hallway. I'd asked Candy, who's the de facto supervisor of both kitchens, ground floor and second floor where we do most of our meals, to get us each a beer. She showed up just as he and I were about to seat ourselves on the chaise longues, with Bill using the one on my left, and placed both cans of Pabst Genuine Draft on the table between our chairs. Stepping forward, she put her arms around me, kissed my cheek and said, "I love you, Mama." Then she whirled to see Bill, strode to him and went up on her toes. With a kiss on his cheek she assured him, "This'll all be cool when my Daddy gets back here. No sweat." Adding a hug for the road, she smiled at us in turn and went back inside, pulling the sliding door closed behind her.
As we took our seats, the innate gentleman in him waiting until my fanny made contact before lowering himself, Bill sighed. "I haven't been a damned bit of help to anyone the past hour or so."
"Not true," I argued. "You were a big help when that … I still can't even believe it really happened … stupid plane came after us. If I'd been out there alone, I might've waited until it was too late to put my shootin' iron to use. No, Bill, it's not fair to say you weren't on top of things all the way, start to finish. As I recall, you sort of scrambled that butthole's brains, literally, when we made it downstairs."
"Whereupon I became as helpful as an infected pimple," he whispered defeatedly.
Because it wasn't the nature of this man I was coming to know as a person and had begun to know rather well just from reading as many of his books as I have so far, I decided right away not to go there. "Don't give me that. You're a man, not a wimp." I fished out my own ciggie and he beat me to the punch with his lighter, showing it was an instinctive action, not something he even thought about. I took a drag and said, "You're looking shell-shocked, Bill, Tell me what's going through your head at the moment. Remember, we need you on top of your game if we're going to figure out what the heck's going on with this mess."
The expression on his face was now really quite telling. This was a moment he knew in his mind had to come. Something he had no choice to address, and he was willing to do it, but only after any-all preliminary duties had been attended to in full. Much like taking care of any improv "busy work" before actually getting at the real purpose of a mission. I knew the feeling only too well, having done it eleventy-nine cajillion times myself in the past.
"I'm still trying to make myself accept it," he said glumly. "It's as if one part of my mind wants to believe she's … shit, I don't know … in the potty, maybe? Ran on out to her car to get a book she's reading? Stepped into the kitchen to snag a beer out of the 'fridge?" He added yet one more shrug, the last available "busy work" task he could find. "I'm trying to get my head around the fact it happened at all, then the way it's hit me." His eyes fell to his knees, encased in a pair of no-name jeans. Another futile shrug.
"I think Adele is the 'item' they were after, Bill. The thing they feel is important to you. I don't see how they knew she'd be so important to you, and I sure as heck wish I knew who 'they' are … for sure." Now I sighed, wondering at my own question and where we'd start. Probably, until Donnie showed up to take charge, we wouldn't do much more than air this out for Bill. I wasn't teasing or humoring him to any extent. I knew Donnie would find what Bill had to say to be valuable information.
My remark seemed to help him focus a little. "I'm pretty sure the woman was the one we first knew as Abigail Aaron, then as Marcella Thrasher." He nodded, confirming it for himself. "I also have no doubt that taller guy who was standing in the boat, the one we saw dickin' around so much with the plane, was the one you say they're looking for. That killer bastard."
"Manlinin," I explained. "Boris Manlinin."
"Right. The other guy? No clue."
"How would they know about Adele?" I asked him and the open air surrounding us. "It's not like you took out an ad in the U-T," was my comparison.
"In a way, I did," he said. His face said he was assembling facts. Making them fit in order as he fleshed it out in his mind. "They wouldn't even need to have anyone inside the house to slip 'em any info, come to think of it. Not if they broke into my house, something I wouldn't put past a group of alleged professionals."
That one made me lean forward, curiosity etched on my face. "Why's that?"
Reddening, he said almost sheepishly, "When I was back at the house in Oceanside to get a shower and change, I checked my e-mail. Even made a note on my Outlook calendar about the fact I met Adele." A long drag on the ciggie as he shook his head in disdain at what was coming to mind now. "As if I'm some kind of high schooler maybe? Is my face breaking out in pimples?" was the question to follow. "Here I am, acting like I'm about sixteen years old and now I may even be leaving notes around to point out where and why I'm most vulnerable? What kind of dipshit am I, anyway? Total high-school-fuck-around from the git-go."
"Bill, there's no way you could've known. No one could."
At first he looked as if he was going to argue the point, but it immediately became clear he saw the incongruity. "Yeah, you're probably right," he said, frustration evident in every word. "It's just … CC, you know I've given up on all that crap by now, don't you?"
"That's what you said," I responded, "but I'm not sure we can ever really give up on any goal so important in life. We can say it, of course, but to honestly dismiss the idea from the realm of possibility, I'm not so sure we can ever do that."
"Moot point," he conceded. "In my mind I was sure it was a done deal. Shitcanning the entire idea, I mean. Then, when I saw her …" His eyes moved up and out, sweeping over the vista of majesty that is the Pacific Ocean when darkness has settled in for the night. "It hit me like a damned train, I swear."
"Your reaction to her?" I asked in a question that was its own answer beyond any doubt.
A nod of confirmation. "Honest to God, I was weak in my knees. It felt like I'd known her since I was a kid, right there, that first … what? … minute? Second, maybe? Like I had to get to her and … shit, I don't know … hold her, maybe? Let her know how I felt? Make sure she knew I'd always be here to take care of her? Protect her? Keep her safe?"
The man gave out an angry snort, taking the last drag on his ciggie and mashing it hard in the ashtray. "Nice fucking job you're doing so far, Cady. The assholes got her and you were all the help of a ruptured toenail." The last few words emerged with a seething undercurrent.
"Bill, we couldn't've known. No one could."
"Tell that to Adele," he said angrily, then scanned the mighty waters ahead of us again, his voice not raised, but growing sterner. Colder. "It stops here. It stops now. I will do whatever it takes, CC … what-fucking-ever-it-takes … to get that woman back here safely, or I'll damned sure die trying."
"What could it be they want?" I inquired, steering the conversation away from the futility of chasing moonbeams and back to what mattered more at the moment. "What can you possibly have these people, whomever they might be, would want? Want badly enough to go to all this trouble? I've been trying to come up with something, but I can't do it."
Again Bill shrugged. "It's impossible to even guess accurately. We'll have to wait until I … or you, or someone … hears from the shitheads. I mean, okay, I have money now. Selling all these books has produced a pretty decent pile of cash, but if these animals are big-time, as you suggest, that wouldn't do it. A few million is chickenfeed to someone like that. Hell, if it was just money they wanted, I'd say it was fine and dandy with me and fork it over on the spot, in cash." He scowled and lit another ciggie as he looked at me. "Every damned dime of it. What the hell is money if a guy can't manage to find happiness? It's nothing."
I just watched him, expecting there was more to come. I stubbed out my ciggie, but kept my eyes on his face. Waiting.
"That part. Shit, it could be kaka, too. I mean, I've met girls before where there was an … aura, would you call it? A connection? A link?" Again he shook his head. "Never anything even close to this powerful, but there, all the same. Each time it went poof as soon as the situation was taken back from the moment. Given a chance to stand on its own. That didn't happen here." His eyes locked onto mine. "I'm not going to use any asinine words like 'love', or any of that other crap. That's got to be the most misused, misunderstood word in our entire language system. I'm talking about something that just fits. Seems right. Feels right. As if, when I met her, I found a piece of the 'Bill kit' that's been missing." He shook his head. "When I put my arm around her shoulders the day I met her, it didn't feel wrong. You want to know what actually felt wrong to me, CC? It was all the times I didn't have my arm around her when I should've. That felt wrong. It's like I missed the damned boat when I didn't do it, not when I did."
"I know," I told him, my eyes blurring with tears I hadn't realized were welling up until that moment. "Donnie and I have that. It's … it's … hard to understand," I admitted as it came to me. "Even harder to explain. It just is."
More futility as he shook his head now. "Whatever it might be, if I have it and they want it, if that's all it takes to get her back by my side, I'll fork it over." Now, with only the dimmed shadows of light from inside the hallway and the glow of the heater sitting down by our feet to illuminate the area, those steely blue eyes of Bill's went icy cold. Eerily cold and emotionless, at least as far as any capacity for pity. "But, if they've harmed her in any way … I'm talking about dislodging a hair on her head that wasn't ready to fall free on its own … there will definitely be a few dead motherfuckers among the people who took her."
I was then able to feel someone walking over the graves of those people, whomever they might be. Bill had just taken an oath with the darkness itself. There'd be no survivors if they'd done Adele any harm in any way. Absolutely none.
CHAPTER FOUR
San Diego, California
Monday, December 22nd, 2008 … 8:28 p.m.
Somehow coming out and committing to what he had in mind and was intent on doing put a rod of steel in Bill. Straightened him up and got him so filled with resolve it soon began to slosh and spill as he moved. Discounted initially as he tried to absorb the potentiality of a loss he was once so sure he'd never face again, he was girding up for battle to make sure he didn't fall prey to whimsy and fate. Every step we took on the way back seemed to enhance his mood. Put him more into the frame of mind assuring him he would be a part in solving this problem.
Or else.
We gravitated toward Angela, who was asking questions and taking notes, already having called her backup, Detective Carlina Torres. Mainly Bill and I were listening, trying to take it all in as we waited for Donnie to show up. He'd be our go-to guy on this in all areas where Angela and her huge police department weren't the most helpful. Beginning with the Luiseño people, and extending to levels many wouldn't believe, Donnie has contacts. A network. People he can call on, or prevail if necessary, to get things done without silly hindrances like warrants and other tools of the rights we give known criminals.
Standing where we were, by the first floor patio door, and trying to stay out of the way as busy cops did cop things, I distractedly lit a cigarette. I hadn't even put the danged lighter back in my ciggie case when a sheriff's deputy stepped in front of me. Close. Too close for comfort, in my opinion.
"You can't smoke here," he said curtly.
"Pardon me?"
"Put it out," he told me with a pompous gesture. "Now."
"Look, deputy, for your infor—"
"She doesn't have to do that," Bill broke in, shouldering past me so he stood closer to the lawman than I was.
Reactively, the cop took a half step back. "If I say she—"
"This is her house," Bill said with a quiet authority. "She's a crime victim. She won't be disturbing any evidence and there's no damned reason you need to pester the woman and be so damned bossy. Leave her alone." He fished out a ciggie and lit it. "Leave me alone, too."
"Look, mis—"
"Chill, deputy," was Angela's interjection. "He's right." She stepped closer, stopping at Bill's side. "If Judge Ryder wishes to smoke in her own home, leave the woman alone." Then she followed it up with a dose of "the Angela eyes". They could probably film that look and take it to Pamplona, in northern Spain, then play it when all those danged bulls start running. They'd see those eyes of hers, turn around as a group and head for the freaking barn. I'm serious.
The deputy glanced at her SDPD badge, took another look into her eyes, shrugged and turned away. "Whatever," he muttered.
The three of us spoke a few minutes, keeping our voices low, with Bill and me giving her as accurate a description as we could of the three people in the boat. She explained the sheriff's bomb squad was in our back yard now gathering as much evidence as possible. She also let us know they didn't have a whale of a lot more at the moment than what we'd already told them. It was a crime scene, as the deputy said, and they were putting a case together.
Angela assured me they wouldn't make us leave the house, which I felt was important, crime scene or not. This is our home. Where our babies live. Where we all sleep. This place is the center of our collective world and I didn't want to face the idea we'd be booted from home at night with no place to go. Especially with a team of hobgoblins attempting to kill someone on the premises, names yet unknown, both of the killers and the potential victim or victims. She said we would be barred from the ground floor beyond going into and out of the garage area, but I saw it as an inconvenience only. Not a major hurdle.
They'd been specific when they arrived about our youngest, smallest baby, Brittany. She had to go, they insisted. Too interested. Too excited. Might destroy evidence. Would get in the way and was a problem they didn't need. That's when we found out she had her own guardian, of a sort. It was quite a surprise.
"If ya touch our doggie I'm gonna scratch yer eyes out!" barked Candy, our quietest and gentlest baby of all. Candy is the kind of young woman who, if she saw a fly land on the kitchen counter, would try to reason with it and ask it to leave before someone with a flyswatter saw he was there and harmed him. However, when it was Brittany's safety at stake, she was suddenly a fearless protectoress. She sprang forward, scooped the dog into her arms, then stood there as she stared defiantly at the cop. "I ain't kiddin' ya none, neither!" she snapped. "I mean it!"
Her sisters, Bren and Adrianne, stepped forward and guided Candy and Brittany away before it became any more contested, then stayed off by a wall, remaining out of the way like Bill and I were doing. Adrianne dashed upstairs and returned with the leash, so Brittany was spared any additional conflict.
We'd hit a momentary lull in the conversation with Angela. As a matter of fact, she was sort of eyeballing the ciggie I held and I was half expecting to hear "Gimme" from her, other cops present or not, when a scowl crossed her face. Either Brittany got loose and did a very rare boo-boo on the floor, with Angela inadvertently stepping in it, or she'd just seen something too gross and disgusting to overlook.
"Cheese it!" she whispered hotly. "It's the super-cops." The grimace to follow told me she was seeing someone or something that evoked a host of bad memories.
As a unit, Bill and I swiveled to look at what had caused Angela to glower that way.
A woman had walked in through the garage area, opened now with a few people out there sifting for clues and-or evidence they'd never find. I already told them there was never anyone in the garage. Explained those ninja freaks came in through the beach side of the house, using the patio doors. She was attractive, but not beautiful. Late 50s with platinum blonde hair. She had a pretty mouth, one that looked as if it often smiled, but there was an aura about her promising she wasn't always pleasant. Made it clear if someone tried to bite her, they'd be in grave danger of being bitten in return, but much worse than what they inflicted.
She was perhaps five six, no more than that, but not too awfully much more than 120 pounds. Hazel eyes evinced a portrayal of power she'd earned, maybe even usurped, but never waited to have it given to her. She was the crux of a job that would get finished if she had any say in the matter. She was also a fight about to happen, or an irresolvable problem about to be encountered, if anyone stood in her way.
When her gaze, which was sweeping our small domain, locked with Angela's, I had a hint of where Angela learned to bark. And bite.
"Detective Angela Dutton. Hello, dear. And how are you doing?" she asked, extending her hand to shake. Without feeling it, I could sense she had a firm grip. "Not as well as I'd like to feel … now," Angela answered grudgingly. She peered down at the hand extended her way. Seemed to give it a moment's thought, then dutifully put out her own hand to accept the offering. "Hello, Olivia. What's your title now, if I might ask? No longer a special agent with the FeeBees, I know, and I heard you shitcanned the SAC job, too. Right?"
"And it's nice to see you, too," the woman replied with a warmth I never questioned was pulled from a training session somewhere years ago. "Still the same warm, cuddly little thing I came to know and love, aren't you, Detective?"
"Oh, you bet your sweet ass," Angela vowed, not even a trace of a smile on her face. "I hesitate to ask, but duty requires it. Why are you here, Olivia?"
"To be involved in this investigation, of course," she responded.
"Oh, that's just great," Angela told her with an air of disgust. "How many cops are you going to get killed this time?"
CHAPTER FIVE
San Diego, California
Monday, December 22nd, 2008 … 8:36 p.m.
The electricity in the air was almost crackling. I swear, honest to Pete, I could feel it in my hair. My scalp was tingling. I'd hate to think how big my eyes became at Angela's question, but I knew my buddy well enough to have no doubt she was severely pissed at this Olivia babe, whomever she might be.
Some people might even try to call Angela a "pretty little thing", but they'd sense in a big hurry they were off base and want the words back. For one thing, she's not phenomenally little at five-seven, between 130-135, and the "pretty" part is true from a couple interpretations. She's an attractive woman, but tough. As quickly as she might kiss you, she'd also knock you on your butt or arrest you. Shoot you, if necessary. She's skeptical, untrusting, doubtful and leery all at once. Her icy blue eyes can pierce deeply enough to think if she did it in an operating room she'd be able to take out your brain and examine it under a microscope. The term a "cutting glance", if used with regard to that woman, might honestly draw blood.
Those same eyes can stop a bad guy in his tracks. Make him pause in startled fear long enough for her to take action to defend herself. Her personality, when Angela believes it to be necessary, is "Type A" on steroids. If she's afraid of anyone at all, it would only be God, and I've heard she and that Deity normally just pass each other with polite nods in the hallway. Only if a man has all day to devote to an arduous task should he go nose-to-nose with Angela Dutton. In that case, the guy should also pack a lunch. He'll be there all day and into the evening. This woman named Olivia didn't seem to feel a big need to back down from Angela, but I also didn't detect any indication she was preparing to charge. Olivia appeared too worldly to be seen as foolhardy, and I had the sense she hadn't done anything rash since she was a teen, if it ever took place at all. Following a sudden urge, I took a half step back. If weapons were drawn, or fists began flying, I didn't want to be in the middle of it, but I wouldn't get far enough away to be unable to help my pal.
Facing each other, no clue as to which was matador, which was the bull, the women had their eyes locked in bristling silent communication. Following what felt like five minutes of heat, Olivia gave a quiet chuckle. "You never will leave that resting dog alone, will you, dear?"
"Your hair is very pretty," Angela said unexpectedly.
Olivia looked at her, taken off base. Her expression swore she wanted to know why the compliment was offered. It also attested she'd die before she asked.